"You're bossy. And short."

Then.

"Dad wants us to pick up where he left off," early-season-one-Dean earnestly told Sam. "Saving people, hunting things – the family business." And save people and hunt evil things they did, all season long. But then, before John died, he whispered a secret into Dean's ear, telling him that he might one day have to kill the little brother he'd spent his life protecting. Nine episodes later, Dean finally gave in and shared this secret with Sam, who reacted rather badly. Sam told Dean he couldn't protect him; Dean insisted that he could try.

Also, Sam met fellow psychic Ava, who was cute and perky and utterly normal – right up to the moment Sam and Dean discovered her missing from her home in Peoria and her fiancé dead in bed with his throat slit.

Now.

Pierpont Inn, est. 1930. It's a gorgeous building, from the outside, at least. A removals van pulls up outside. Proprietor Susan Thompson shows the removal guy upstairs to collect the boxes he will be taking away tonight, while he laments the forthcoming closure of the hotel where his parents and grandparents got engaged. So, we're talking small town, close-knit community type thing, then. Two little girls dressed in identical and kind of old-fashioned outfits sit atop the stairs watching the activity. One of the girls, Tyler, laments aloud the removal of toys they no longer play with. "Son of a bitch," mutters the other girl, Maggie, her words repeated a moment later by Tyler. Susan rebukes Tyler for cursing, Tyler throws the blame onto Maggie, and Susan indulgently repeats the rebuke for Maggie. All seems completely normal, if a little detached from ordinary modern life.

Upstairs in a private room, a myriad of antique dolls are displayed all around. They are deeply creepy. Tyler wanders in and starts to play with an enormous dolls house – a scale replica of the hotel. The dolls house is almost as big as my actual bedroom, and I take a moment to be deeply envious of the size of this building. Tyler sets about putting the dolls house dolls to bed, wishing them all goodnight in a way I'm not sure many children her age would actually do. Does this child mix with any normal, modern children at all? Or does she spend her whole life locked up in this hotel living in a timewarp? Tyler is suddenly disconcerted – but not alarmed – to see that one of the dolls has moved from where she placed it. She finds the doll lying at the foot of the stairs, his head twisted 180^o. Just then, she hears her mother scream and rushes out to see what is wrong.

Removal Guy has fallen downstairs, his head twisted around 180^o just like the doll. It is very gross. Susan frantically dials 911 for an ambulance, despite the fact that it is blatantly way too late to save the man's life, and shouts for Tyler not to look. Demonstrating that innate morbidity common to most children, however, Tyler continues to stare in fascination. Alongside the corpse of the late removal man lies one of those antique dolls from upstairs, its face smashed by the fall.

Creepy kids! Creepy antique dolls! Creepy old hotel! Fabulously creepy intro.

Titles.

Peoria, Illinois. Motel. Maps, notes, missing posters and the like are pinned to the wall, detailing Winchester-style research into the disappearance of Ava Wilson: 'last seen at her home in Lafayette, Indiana', according the missing poster taped to the wall, despite the fact that Ava lived in Peoria, not Lafayette. She went to Lafayette to find Sam in the last episode, but didn't live there. She lived in Peoria, which is why the boys are there now. Bad continuity, props department!

Demonstrating his ability to multitask, Sam is on the phone to Ellen while scouring the Internet. Dean wanders in bearing coffee, and we see that he has had his hair cut since the last episode – it's always close-cropped, but is now even shorter than ever. The brothers compare notes, and thus fill the audience in on a little of what they've been up to since the last episode ended on such a downbeat note. Ellen has heard nothing – and I'd like to imagine that Ellen is just one of a number of contacts they've been calling in hopes of hearing some news on the grapevine, since they do actually know other people, and not all of John's old contacts died last season – Sam has been searching every database he can think of, but also found nothing; Ava has simply vanished into thin air. Dean has likewise learned nothing while out and about, "same as before," he notes, apologising to Sam for this inability to unearth any new leads. They've been searching for a while now, it seems.

Ellen did have one thing, though, Sam informs his brother. A hotel in Cornwall, Connecticut, two freak accidents in the last three weeks. Dean wonders what that has to do with Ava, knowing how obsessive his little brother tends to get about these things, but Sam explains that it is just a job, unconnected to Ava in any way, going on to explain just how bizarre the freak accidents were by way of emphasis. I find myself wondering exactly how Ellen came to bring this to his attention – she seems to have lots of hunters drifting through her saloon a lot of the time, and could have given the case to any one of them. So either she mentioned it to Sam because she was tired of him calling to ask about Ava's disappearance and thought he needed a distraction, or, most likely he asked her if she'd heard of any potential jobs due to growing frustration with his inability to find Ava and need for something more positive to do.

It's a little frustrating how often new hunts come via Ellen and the Roadhouse gang this season, but it bothers me less on this occasion. I can quite imagine Sam in his frustration asking Ellen if she had something, anything, for him to do to take his mind off Ava – looking for a quick fix, rather than taking the time to search out a new case for himself. And Dean's hardly likely to go looking up new hunts just at the moment, having made it clear that he would prefer to take a break and spend some time dealing with the Demon situation.

Anyway, Sam concedes that it might well be nothing, but that he's already told Ellen that they will think about checking it out. Dean isn't exactly brimming over with enthusiasm for this potential new case, a fact Sam calls him on. Sam has clearly forgotten – or is pretending to – that in the last two episodes in a row Dean has said that he wanted to take a break from hunting and lie low for a while, which makes this hesitation about taking on a new case less than surprising.

"It's just, you know, not the patented Sam Winchester way, is it?" Dean notes, attempting to throw the heat back onto Sam rather than taking the bait for another round of argument over whether or not to actively continue hunting given everything else going on in their lives. However, it is clearly a rock-hard place situation, here. Sam invites his brother to dig his own grave by explaining that remark, and Dean obliges. "I just figured after Ava, there'd be, uh, you know – more angst and droopy music, and staring out the rainy windows…" Heh. He's totally mocking the emo stereotype there. He's right, though, about Sam's more typical behaviour patterns. Sam just sits and gives him a withering look, and Dean gives up the protest, having both made and failed to make his point. "Yeah, I'll shut up now." Hee.

SAM: "Look. I'm the one that told her to go back home. Now her fiancé is dead, and some demon has taken her off to God knows where."

It is essentially immaterial whether the demon that took her was possessing her at the time, or if it was possessing someone else or otherwise incarnated and snatched Ava with her own senses intact – either way, Sam is blaming himself, despite the fact that he had no way of knowing what was going to happen when he told her to go home. He goes on to inform the audience that it has now been a month since Ava's disappearance. A whole month of searching for any clue or lead they can dig up, and they have unearthed precisely nothing. A whole month hanging around Peoria, evidently, since that is where they still are. Must be the longest they've stayed in one place for a good long time now – a compromise of sorts, in effect. Hanging around Peoria for so long kind of falls under the banner of laying low, as Dean wanted, but since they have been searching avidly for Ava at the same time, that satisfies Sam's desire to keep looking for answers. But they can't continue like this indefinitely.

"So, I'm not giving up on her, but I'm not gonna let other people die either," Sam concludes. And whoa, if that isn't almost the exact opposite of how he felt this time last season, when random people in danger came a very poor second place to pursuing his own agenda. Except that, as we will later learn, his change of heart is still more about his own agenda than it is the actual people who may or may not be in danger. "We've got to save as many people as we can."

Dean looks at him for a long moment. A year ago Dean would have been delighted to hear those words coming from Sam's mouth, but a lot has happened in that year. He doesn't go into any of that, however, taking refuge in traditional Dean-style defensive humour. Both brothers are studiously keeping up a pretence of normality so far this episode. "Wow," he says, deadpan. "That attitude is just way too healthy for me. I'm officially uncomfortable now, thank you."

Sam laughs, and is rewarded with Dean's agreement to take the case. Maybe Dean needs a distraction from the Ava-hunt, too. Off they speed to Cornwall, Connecticut.

Pierpont Inn. The Impala pulls up outside, and the Winchester brothers amble toward the door, Dean enthusing now about the prospect of a good old-fashioned haunting to sink their teeth into. "Dude, this is sweet. We never get to work jobs like this…old school haunted houses. Fog, secret passageways, sissy British accents…" Oi! As the owner of a British accent, I reserve the right to resent that remark. "Might even run into Fred and Daphne while we're inside," he continues, pausing for a moment's dreamy contemplation of Daphne, although whether he means the cartoon version or Sarah Michelle Gellar's live-action version remains unclear.

What is clear is that Dean is trying just a wee bit too hard to be Dean, to be his normal, brash, confident, wise-cracking self of last season, so far this episode. He told Sam he needed to take a break from the relentless hunt, but Sam pretty much told him that was tough, he had to keep going anyway, so he's now pretending none of that happened. Business as usual, right? It's easier said than done.

On the way into the hotel, Sam notices something – a quincox carved onto an urn on the porch. A quincox, or five-spot, is used for hoodoo spellwork, apparently, and I'm satisfied to note that once Dean has had his attention drawn to the sign, he seems to know as much about it as Sam. It seems that haunted might not be the problem here, although Dean points out that the hotel seems a little too "white meat" for hoodoo, and that botanical know-how that both seem to possess comes to the fore once more as they discuss the absence of, and hoodoo virtues of, bloodweed.

Inside the hotel, Susan Thompson comes to greet her new guests as Dean asks for a room for a couple of nights. Just then, the two girls come barrelling through the lobby, Tyler just about crashing into Sam's legs as she dashes past him. It's cleverly done, as viewers can see both girls, and there is no hint yet that the adults present in the lobby can't. Susan apologises, and then congratulates the boys on being among her final guests, explaining that the hotel will be closing down at the end of the month. "Let me guess, you guys are here antiquing?" she adds. Dean takes a moment to consider, and then decides to play along this assumption, since it's as good a cover story as any, although he also takes the time to ask how she knows. "You just look the type," Susan knowingly explains, and as she continues with the checking in, Dean is frowning slightly as if trying to work out in what way he could possibly be considered to look like the 'antiquing' kind of person.

"So, king-size bed?" Susan brightly inquires. Dumbstruck, Dean executes a classic double take, and it is Sam, this time, who splutters his way through a hasty denial of this awkward assumption. "What? No! No, uh, no…uh. No. Two singles. We're just brothers." Susan is embarrassed, and Dean, apparently unable to let this drop, wonders what she meant about them looking the type. Still embarrassed, Susan has no idea how to answer that question. Heh. Sam breaks the awkwardness by changing the subject completely and making a start on the casework at the same time, asking about that quincox decorated urn outside, seeing as how they are supposed to be antiquers, and all, which is the perfect excuse for such questions. Unfortunately, Susan is unable to answer any questions as to where it came from, so that lead is an immediate dead end. Oh, but Dean seems to have signed them in under the name 'Mahogahov', which is no end of amusing, not to mention hard to spell.

And, yeah, the gay jokes have been done before, and this one is a little overdone. But, as I've said before, the brothers travel to new places all the time, and meet new people in every episode. They are two young men travelling together, working together, staying in hotels together – it is a very true reflection of the times we live in that they would frequently run into the automatic, 'politically correct' assumption that they must therefore be a couple. People these days tend not to even bother remembering that there might be other possible relationships.

The porter, Sherwin, who is summoned to take the brothers up to their room, also instantly assumes they are antiquers. It's kind of wearing the joke a little thin. But maybe antiques are the only reason anyone ever comes to visit this town. Sherwin takes Dean's bag and hauls it upstairs for him, despite Dean's protest that he can manage it just fine himself. Sam, though, is left to carry his own bags, which is amusingly not commented upon. Sherwin proves more than willing to talk about the hotel, though, which is potentially useful for the case, and he knows the place inside out, having practically grown up there, following in his parents' footsteps working there. Although the hotel has lovely panelling and must have been beautiful once, it is now, frankly, a dive, and it's easy to see why it is closing down. There's no doubt it was a fine place in it's prime, but the extreme disrepair is very apparent, and it would undoubtedly cost more to renovate than it is worth – or than Susan can afford.

Reaching their room, the boys head inside. Old Sherwin holds a hand out in expectant silence, and Dean is amusingly nonplussed and has to be prompted. "You're not gonna cheap out on me, are you, boy?" Heh. I guess Dean is not used to staying at the kind of place where the hired help expects a tip as a matter of course. Disrepair or no, this hotel is a lot more up-market than the boys' usual accommodation.

Cut to: Sam studying papers in their room, a wedding dress bizarrely displayed on the wall behind him. No sooner have viewers spotted and been disconcerted by this bizarre detail of hotel decoration than Dean wanders into shot to mockingly make that exact point. "Why the hell would anyone stay here?" he wonders, dropping onto the bed and promptly falling backward as it sags alarmingly beneath him. Bet that's uncomfortable to sleep on. The bed he sits on, claiming as his own, is the bed nearest to the door – that's another minor character detail that has remained true since the very beginning. Dean always takes the bed nearest to the door. "I'm amazed they kept in business this long," he scoffs.

The first obvious connection between the deaths was that both were involved with the closure of the hotel – a realtor, and the removals guy taking unwanted stuff to goodwill. Sam speculates that maybe someone doesn't want the place to close and is using hoodoo to fight back, which leads onto further musings on who exactly the witch doctor could be. Susan doesn't seem likely, since she's the one selling, Sherwin is a possibility, but seems a long shot.

"Course the most troubling question," Dean sidetracks. "Is why these people assume we're gay?"

"Well, you are kind of butch." Without sparing him so much as a glance, Sam instantly takes the opportunity to mock, because there's no way he's going to just leave that lying there. "Probably think you're overcompensating."

Actually, they are both overcompensating, in their different ways, and for very different reasons than Sam is teasing Dean. Their whole involvement in this case is about overcompensation for the things that lie outside of their control and scare them.

Later. The brothers Winchester wander around the hotel, super-on-the-ball Sam taking note of another urn marked with a quincox, and snoop their way to a door marked 'private'. Dean knocks, and is presumably disappointed when Susan answers, meaning they have to talk their way inside, rather than taking advantage of vacancy to conduct a little B&E. After clumsily agreeing that the room is fine, there's a long silence, and it's all very awkward, with Susan wondering what the hell these random guests are bothering her for. Then, before she can politely ask them to leave her in peace, Dean notices all those creepy antique dolls littering her private rooms and asks about them, taking the opportunity to get one back on Sam for the teasing earlier. "'Cause this one, here, he's got a major doll collection back home." Heh. Sam glares, but has to go along with this now the line has been spun, and honestly – they couldn't be shiftier if they tried, but somehow Susan is persuaded to let these rather odd strangers into her private apartment to have a look at her antique doll collection.

Inside Susan's private apartment, Dean takes a moment to be totally creeped out by all the dolls, and quite rightly, too. Sam, on the other hand, the supposed antique doll enthusiast, is more interested in the dolls house scale model of the hotel. He also notices and comments upon the doll at the bottom of the stairs with its head twisted around. Sammy really is on the ball so far this case. Overcompensating: a successful outcome to this case is hugely important to him for reasons of his own completely unconnected to the case itself.

Susan offhandedly supposes that Tyler probably broke the doll, but Tyler herself appears at this point to protest that Maggie is being mean. Susan indulgently gives her a message to tell Maggie to be nice, because so far we're being given no reason to suppose Maggie is anything other than she appears to be, and Sam takes the opportunity to question Tyler about the broken doll, what with it having the same injury as the dead removal guy and all. Tyler immediately insists that she didn't break the doll, she found it like that, and that Maggie didn't break it either, because Grandma would be mad.

Grandma Rose, apparently, was the original owner of all the toys in the room, but these days spends all her time shut away in her room up in the attic, sitting in a wheelchair staring out of the window, and doesn't receive visitors of any kind. Looks like kind of a lonely existence for the old lady, and Susan is oddly defensive of her, as if her illness is something to be ashamed of and kept hidden.

Leaving the Thompsons' private quarters, our intrepid heroes discuss the case so far – dolls, hoodoo, mysterious reclusive grandma, none of it adding up to anything concrete. Dean suggests that while he goes to see what he can find out about Grandma Rose, Sam should get online and work that research angle. "Don't go surfing porn," is his parting shot. "That's not the sort of whacking I mean." Sam huffs at his brother's departing back.

The brotherly interaction thus far has been strongly reminiscent of Everybody Loves A Clown and Bloodlust – after enormous emotional turmoil they both very much need to get back to some kind of normal, and so are both putting on this huge act for one another of being their usual selves, with all the bickering and baiting that entails. But it is, largely, just that: an act. And it shows. The masks don't quite fit anymore, now that they both know what lies behind them. And thus a fair bit of the brotherly bantering feels a little forced, as though they are each just playing at the part that's expected of him, rather than actually behaving naturally.

Lobby. Susan signs some kind of legal document to do with the sale of her hotel, and asks the hovering clerk what kind of renovations are being planned. The clerk seems surprised that she doesn't already know – the hotel is going to be demolished. Heh. Clearly I was right – the building is in such a state of disrepair that it simply isn't cost effective to renovate. Easier to just knock the whole thing down and start again from scratch. Susan is a little startled, but since she's already signed the papers, made plans for her future, and can't afford to keep the place running anyway, she makes no argument.

This story unwinds very slowly, it has to be said. But that could be considered something of a blessing after the exhausting angst-fest we've been through this season. The audience needs to be allowed to catch breath as much as the brothers do!

Thompson private apartment. Sitting in front of the dolls house hotel, Tyler is setting up a dolls tea party and humming to herself in a way I've never seen any child that age behave. Seriously, this kid is not normal. In the dolls house hotel, a doll sits on a bed. In the corresponding room of the real hotel, the clerk chappie also sits on the bed, looking depressed. If I had to stay in a room that looked like that, I'd be depressed, too. It really is hideous. In the dolls house, a door opens. In the clerk's room, a door opens behind him, but there is no one there. Not noticing, the clerk removes his tie.

Tyler suddenly stands and looks inside the dolls house, her eyes going wide – but showing no sign of any real alarm – when she sees a doll hanging from a light fitting with a cord tied around its neck. Elsewhere in the hotel, the clerk's body jerks as he hangs from the light fitting in his room, a rope around his neck.

Later. Up in his room, Sam watches through the window as a bevy of coroner's office officials remove the body of the clerk. Looking depressed and distressed, Sam flings himself away from the window once more. Downstairs, Dean hovers while Susan finishes up talking to the police, and then asks what happened as she wanders over to him. She explains about the guy apparently committing suicide, and Dean is appropriately sympathetic. It's nice when the show acknowledges that he can be good with people when he needs to be; his interpersonal skills tend to be clumsier when he's either trying too hard or can't be bothered, he's fine when he's just getting on with things without over-thinking or distraction. Susan goes on to bemoan all the bad luck she's had lately, and tells Dean she will completely understand if he wants to check out. Dean assures her that he doesn't scare that easy. That run of bad luck is, after all, his reason for being there, and besides, it isn't as if he paid with his own money, although of course he doesn't tell her all that.

Sam and Dean's room. An outside view from the corridor shows us Sam's back as he sits slumped randomly in a chair; the door is open, key in the lock. Dean appears and enters, removing and pocketing the key and shutting the door after him, talking briskly about the latest victim the entire time. Sam mumbles a response. All business, Dean chunters on about the case, asking Sam what he's found out about Grandma Rose. There's a slight pause before Sam, still out of focus slumped in his chair behind Dean, croaks, "You're bossy."

Dean totally wasn't expecting that, shooting his brother a startled look as he expresses his confusion. The camera finally focuses in on Sam, who is totally, totally wasted and such a sight to behold. Fangirls are deeply, deeply amused as he flings his hands about and reiterates, "You're bossy. And short." Heee. Sam dissolves into a fit of drunken giggling about being taller than his big brother, and you just know that when he was a gangly teenager whose latest growth spurt saw him overshooting his brother for the first time, he took any and every opportunity to rub it in.

Dean is not amused. And yes: bossy. It's an oldest child thing. "Are you drunk?" Well, obviously. Sam pretty much makes that point. "Yeah. So? Stupid." Glancing over at the ransacked mini-bar as if seeking confirmation of just how much Sam has had to drink, Dean is so not impressed. "Dude, what are you thinking? We're working a case."

Nice characterisation that, the professionalism, drawing a clear distinction between on and off duty. We've seen Dean drinking many times, but we've never seen him drunk, especially not while actively working a job. Even that heavy drinking session with Gordon in Bloodlust was while off-duty and didn't seem to impair his ability to work the case when they got back to it. And it figures that getting drunk on duty would be an absolute no-no.

Makes you wonder if that was something John drilled into his son, like the rest of Dean's training, or something he learned in reaction to John's own behaviour. Sam implied a couple of times last season that John was something of a drinker at times, but we never got the chance to actually confirm or deny that in any way. Dean likes to kick back and have a good time – or used to, anyway – but he's also paranoid about keeping his family safe and not screwing up, and drinking to excess would impair his ability to achieve that. He's just too controlled for that. From what we've seen, he's well aware of his limits and sticks to them.

Dean has also implied in the past that Sam is more of a lightweight where drinking is concerned, and this scene pretty much confirms that. *G*

Anyway. Thus rebuked, Sam's giggles turn to tearfulness. Figures he'd be a maudlin drunk, all the emotional baggage he carries around, and being so much the heart-on-sleeve type. He starts bemoaning the fact that he failed to save the clerk chappie from his untimely death. Dean instantly points out that there was nothing Sam could have done, since he didn't know what was going to happen, but Sam is unconvinced. Dean should know by now that once Sam has got an idea in his head, nothing can shift it. Sam angrily snits that that's just an excuse, that he should have found a way to save him. Okay, so Sam's also an unreasonable drunk. He isn't all-powerful and he isn't all-seeing, and no one expects him to be, except possibly himself. "I should have saved Ava, too," he insists, which gets us much closer to the actual source of his current drunken angst.

"Yeah, well, you can't save everyone," Dean reasons, which is pretty much what I just said. "Even you said that." Of course, since we've already noted that Sam is an unreasonable drunk, this line of argument is never going to work, but the attempt at reassurance is reassuringly in character for Dean. It's the role in which he's most comfortable.

Maudlin, unreasonable and angry Drunk!Sam slams a hand – fortunately not his broken one – down on a nearby table for emphasis, shouting, "No, Dean, you don't understand, all right! The more people I save, the more I can change!"

Dean doesn't understand what it is that Sam wants to change. "My destiny, Dean!" Sam yells, like it should be obvious. Ah, Sam. Like I said, overcompensating – overcompensating for the helplessness he feels with regard to his own situation by throwing himself into a case where he felt he would be able to achieve something positive, seeking to somehow tip the cosmic scales in his favour as insurance against the day the Demon comes for him, or whatever. Thus, the death of the clerk staying right there in the same building when he'd come here specifically to prevent anyone else dying was that final straw that tipped him over the edge.

The transition from apparently normal, working-a-job Sam into Drunk!Sam is a little jarring, without much to obviously trigger this seemingly out-of-character behaviour and without ever having seen Sam behave this way before, but given everything he's been struggling with recently, I can believe that he would just snap like this. He's been trying to handle all this business with his visions and the Demon and Ava in the way that Dean handles things – by repressing and denying and being practical, focusing on the job at hand as a coping mechanism. Having pretty much told Dean to just suck it all up and deal, he's been trying to do likewise. Business as usual. But that isn't really Sam; he's more of a heart-on-sleeve kind of person, and needs to get things off his chest and share in order to heal and deal.

All that said, he really needs to get over this fixation with the Demon turning him evil as if all it has to do is flip a switch, and focus on doing everything in his power to prevent it happening, taking responsibility for his own actions and decisions, whether past, present or future – at least until he knows for sure what it is, exactly, that the Demon is up to. Maybe there is a switch that can be flipped, maybe all these 'psychic children' are demonic sleeper agents of some kind, but vague hints do not a complete picture make, and until Sam knows for sure he retains full responsibility for and control of his own actions and decisions.

Dean has heard enough. "Okay, that's it. Time for bed, Sasquatch." Heeee. Sasquatch and Short – could be a new name for the show. *G* As Dean manhandles Sam to his feet, Sam earnestly tells his brother, "I need you to watch out for me."

"Yeah, I always do," Dean calmly points out, carefully manoeuvring Sam toward his bed. Oh, Dean. He really, really always does. And Sam knows that, takes it so much for granted so much of the time that he forgets what it actually means. He also is in danger of using Dean's protection as an excuse for not watching out for himself or accepting full adult responsibility for himself.

At the end of the day – or until such a time as he knows the Demon is capable of forcing him to behave other than his conscience dictates – Sam is responsible for his own actions, whether good or bad, and no matter how hard Dean tries to watch out for him or the Demon tries to break him. It isn't good enough to regard himself as ultimately passive in the fight for his soul, with the Demon pulling one way and Dean pulling the other. If he doesn't want the Demon to use him for evil purposes, then it isn't enough to simply beg his brother to look after him and rely on Dean to prevent the worst from happening; he has to fight tooth and nail for himself. That's the core of his appeal to his brother here, though, because his greatest fear now is that his own good intentions will not be enough to save him.

"No! No, no, no," Sam protests, way too drunk to think about what he's saying, phrase it in any way tactfully, or consider the impact on his brother. "You have to watch out for me. All right? And if I ever turn into something that I'm not, you have to kill me."

*sigh* After all his anger at John telling Dean just that and Dean hiding that command from him, now Sam is asking the exact same thing. Dean mutters a weary protest, totally not prepared to have this conversation here and now. But Sam insists. He's also a stubborn drunk, and would genuinely rather die than become the kind of monster he was raised to hunt, his need for assurance on this point outweighing the horrible position he's putting his brother in. Right now all he can see is his own pain and fear; he's oblivious to Dean's once again. "Dean, Dad told you to do it, you have to."

Dean's expression hardens. "Yeah, well, Dad's an ass. He never should have said anything. I mean, you don't do that, you don't lay that kind of crap on your kids."

Oh, Dean. He's still carrying so much anger at John beneath the business-as-usual façade he's been wearing all episode. He was closer to John than anyone in the world, spent more of his life with John than anyone in the world, but he's been burning with anger against him all season: angry with John for dying, angry with John for sacrificing himself for Dean's sake, angry with John for choosing to be the commander of his own private army rather than a father, and angry with John for laying such an impossible burden on him with his final words.

He's right to be angry. But his complete inability to break out of the role the needs of his family have pushed him into over the years is what brought him to the position he now finds himself in, where both John and Sam expect him to do whatever it takes to look after Sam, neither of them stopping to consider that Sam could and should actually be looking out for himself – supported by Dean, yes, but standing on his own two feet as an adult. This has always been a very inward-looking family, tightly enclosed, isolated from the outside world. That was John's decision, and it created this tight-knit and claustrophobic little unit, impossibly interdependent, his sons now utterly trapped by their mutual need for one another. Habits forged over a lifetime are easy to criticise from outside, but can be almost impossible to break free of – especially when the extreme circumstances that created them still exist.

"No, he was right to say it," Sam insists, which is all kinds of horrific for Dean to hear. "Who knows what I might become! Even now, everyone around me dies!"

Oh, Sam. He's been frightened for so long of what his visions might mean, and now has confirmation that they mean something Very Bad indeed. But he was bemoaning being 'cursed' in some way as early as Hookman, complaining that far back that everyone around him died, which was both blatantly not true and kind of narcissistic. The situation has worsened since then, it's true. But still.

"Yeah, well, I'm not dying," Dean firmly insists, which is more or less a reiteration of the promise he made in Nightmare: 'as long as I'm around, nothing bad is going to happen to you'. Sam is too drunk to point out the obvious flaw in that logic: namely that Dean came within a whisker of dying twice in the space of just a few short months recently, surviving only by means of supernatural intervention both times, and that's not even counting all the close shaves they've both had while on the job.

I wondered toward the end of last season if Sam would one day come to the conclusion that if everyone around him dies, and/or is targeted by the Demon, then that means Dean is squarely in the line of fire and should be left behind for his own safety. But although he is still taking the 'everyone around me dies' line, Sam here is clinging to his brother too tightly, needs him too much, to think of pushing him away even for his protection; that wasn't what splitting up last episode was about.

"And neither are you," Dean adds, firmly pushing Sam down onto his bed, which doesn't seem quite as saggy as Dean's and therefore is probably more comfortable to sleep on.

Sam refuses to be comforted, clings to his brother's arms and insists. "You're the only one that can do it. Promise me."

Dean is distressed at Sam's persistence; denial is more his style. "Don't ask that of me," he implores, but Sam is too drunk and too intensely focused on his own pain and fear to see what his insistence is doing to his brother, to understand or care that he's asking Dean to do something that would pretty much destroy him. "Please, you have to promise me," he insists, big eyes full of fearful desperation fixed on the brother who has never been able to say no to him.

When Sam really wants something, he always gets his own way, frequently at Dean's expense. We've seen that many times. And, with Sam so tearful and desperate, Dean gives in and makes the promise he should never have to make, the promise his father already demanded of him and that he lives in dread of having to keep, either not believing he will ever be able to fulfil it, or maybe dreading that he will. He's been carrying that burden all season, with no possible escape from it that doesn't involve losing everything he has left.

Sam relaxes at once, whispering inebriated grateful thanks, and becomes a soppy drunk now, all about the neck clinging and face stroking. Dean, who is never going to allow that kind of thing even at the best – or worst – of times, promptly bats his hands away and swings him sideways onto his bed. Satisfied that he can rely on Dean to take care of all his needs, no matter how grim or extreme, Sam promptly shuffles over onto his belly, buries his face in the pillow, and is asleep at once.

Deeply disturbed, Dean sits and gazes at his enormous little brother, rubbing a horrified hand over his face at what he just did, the implications etched into his pained expression. Damn, but he looks absolutely exhausted – sharing the burden of John's final command with Sam hasn't helped at all, doubling instead of halving the weight. But he doesn't waste too much time brooding, since that's more Sam's style, and what with this team being over quota on passed out drunks already for one case.

So, Dean wearily heads downstairs to do some more digging around on the case. He didn't want to carry on hunting, not with all this hanging over them, but Sam insisted and he agreed, and he's too much of a professional not to see the case through now they've taken it on, even if it hasn't proved as much of a diversion as they'd hoped. He wanders into the deserted bar, wherein Sherwin is indulging in a quiet drink. Well, why not – it's not like he has any customers, at least not until Dean walks in.

Sherwin amiably asks how the antique hunt is coming along, and Dean, thus reminded of his cover story, plays along, admitting that they've been a bit distracted, what with one thing and another. Sherwin pours him a whiskey, and Dean is only too glad to join the old man in a drink. It's been a very long day in a very long month, and, let's face it, a very long year or so. Dean then gets the old man talking on the subject of the recent spate of deaths in the hotel and, being apparently something of a gossip by nature, Sherwin seems only too happy to have someone to talk to. "Every hotel has its spilled blood. If people only knew what's gone on in some of those rooms they've checked into…"

Dean takes the bait, since any grisly stories of past goings on at the hotel are what he's trying to find out about, and Sherwin is freely offering exactly what he wants. "I'd love to hear some stories," he prompts.

Let us take a moment to appreciate just how smoothly Dean pumps old Sherwin for information in this scene, since, as already noted, the clumsier side of Dean's social skills are usually emphasised.

"Boy." Sherwin smiles in delight. "You should never say that to an old man." Heh. It's true.

Cut to: Sherwin taking Dean on a tour of the hotel, talking with great enthusiasm about the history of the place and of Thompsons past who lived there and ran the hotel. Despite his comment about spilled blood earlier, though, he doesn't actually come up with anything scandalous or tragic at all. Dean, to his credit, seems genuinely interested, which must be nice for old Sherwin, who is about to say goodbye to such an enormous chunk of his life. "Happier days," the old man nostalgically notes, pointing out a picture of Susan as a child.

"Not happy now?" Dean keeps pressing for more information.

"Well," Sherwin replies. "Would you be, leaving the only home you ever knew?"

Ouch. "I don't know, I never really knew one," Dean admits, and he says it in a fairly offhand manner, and Sherwin is too caught up in his own stories and memories to notice the implication, but that casual, throwaway line reveals so much about what life was like for the boys growing up. We knew, from earlier episodes, that they'd moved around a lot as children, but that little line gives us the impact of that on a personal level. After the fire, there was no such thing as home. The family was literally all there was. But now Sam is all that's left of Dean's family. And Sam just asked his brother to kill him if things get bad.

Sherwin explains that this is Rose's home, that it has been in the family for over a century – used to be the family estate before it was turned into a hotel. "And now she gets to live in some Senior Living Graveyard, and they tear this place down." He isn't angry with Susan for selling up, but he is bitter about the failure of the hotel.

Dean expresses sympathy, both for the closure of the hotel and Rose's illness, but Sherwin rather unhelpfully refuses to be drawn on that point. Sherwin then shows Dean a photo of Rose as a little girl, sitting with her Creole nanny, Marie, who is wearing a five-spot necklace. A quick flashback montage shows us the other five-spots scattered around the hotel, completely unnecessarily, since it isn't that long since we saw them in the first place, as Dean realises they now have a prime candidate for the hoodoo after all. He hasn't managed to unearth any information about tragic deaths that could precipitate a haunting, but the current theory is that they are looking at hoodoo rather than a spirit, anyway.

Morning. In a mirror, we see Sam draped across the toilet, groaning. Every glimpse of Sam in this scene, until he emerges from the bathroom, is cunningly – and distractingly – filmed in mirror image, only the cast on his hand making the fact in any way apparent. Dean wanders in, and is amused to see that his brother's binge has caught up with him. Has he been out information-gathering all night, or just popped downstairs for breakfast?

"I'll bet you don't remember a thing from last night, do you?" Dean casually enquires in the midst of teasing Sam for the hangover, and relief washes across his face when Sam doesn't deny this presumed lack of memory. Did he only make that promise to shut him up because he believed Sam wouldn't remember? Would it be better or worse for Dean to know he'd made that promise but Sam not?

Sam continues to groan, draped across the toilet. That is just…so unhygienic I don't even know where to begin. I completely understand and sympathise, though. Dean continues to be amused by Sam's self-inflicted suffering.

DEAN: "You know, there's a really good hangover cure. It's a greasy pork sandwich served up in a dirty ashtray."
SAM [groaning]: "Oh, I hate you."
DEAN [amused]: "I know you do."

Dean goes on to tell Sam all about Rose's Creole Nanny and the hoodoo necklace, surmising that Nanny Marie may well have taught Rose a few hoodoo tricks. Sam's interest is piqued enough for him to push aside his nausea and clamber to his feet, hand all over the toilet bowl for support. All about getting back to work, Sam suggests they go talk to Rose. Dean wrinkles his nose in disgust. "You better clean your teeth first." Heh. Even more amusing is the little face Sam pulls in response.

Later. The boys approach the Thompson family's private quarters. Miraculously enough, Sam seems pretty much recovered from his hangover now. Clearly these boys have strong constitutions. Checking that there is no answer when they knock, and that the coast is clear, Sam picks the lock and they head on in, and up to Rose's attic.

Rose sits in her wheelchair, staring out of the window at what looks like some pretty heavy rain outside. Dean and Sam approach, and try talking to her, but get no response. She's just a confused, sick old lady, rendered mute by her illness. Looking like he just ate a bee, Sam beckons Dean over to the other side of the room to furiously whisper that the old lady has had a stroke. His indignation over this, as if he expects Dean to be able to do something about it, is endearingly in character. Since hoodoo is a very hands-on kind of practice, the boys agree that Rose therefore couldn't be the one performing any kind of ritual nastiness on the premises, unless, of course, she is faking.

SAM: "What do you want to do, poke her with a stick?" [Dean looks like he might actually consider the idea. Sam is exasperated] "Dude! You're not gonna poke her with a stick!"

Hee. Susan interrupts this entertaining little exchange to be rightly incensed at the brothers' invasion of her private space, yells at them for scaring her mother – Dean silently wonders how she can tell – and tells them they've got two minutes to get out of her hotel. The boys scarper.

Cut to: the Impala speeding away, while Susan sternly watches from the porch.

Hotel. Up on the landing, Tyler and Maggie are playing jacks. Susan returns to the lobby and calls up to Tyler that she should be packing. Tyler protests that she doesn't want to move, and that Maggie says they aren't allowed to move. Susan has had more than enough, and frustratedly tells Tyler she is too old to have an imaginary friend. Duh! And we have spirit, not hoodoo after all. Maggie isn't real – hands up anyone who didn't see that coming. Susan walks away; the girls look at one another. "I don't like her," Maggie mutters, her sulkiness sinister now that we know what she is.

Later. Susan is loading up the car with boxes, preparing for the big move. The hotel isn't meant to close till the end of the month, which kind of begs the questions: just how far are they from the end of the month, weeks or days, and what month is this now, anyway? Susan bids farewell to Sherwin as he drives away, either for the day or for good, we aren't told. That's the last we'll see of him, either way.

Upstairs, Tyler is playing with Grandma Rose's old toys again. Seriously, has this family never bought any new toys for their children in the last couple of generations? Anyway, Tyler is mildly perturbed – but not alarmed – when the swing outside the dolls house hotel starts to swing all by itself. She gazes at it in fascination. That is one creepy little girl, and she's the living one. Was she always like this, or is it Maggie's recent influence. Growing up in that house, you could make a case both ways.

Outside, a wind springs up, and Susan notices that the swings are swinging all by themselves. Long story short – all the play equipment starts to operate without any human intervention: the swings swing, the seesaw seesaws, and the roundabout whirls. Up in the apartment, the dolls house replica of each item does likewise, while Tyler watches. Susan starts to freak out. Her car starts up all by itself, and drives right at her. But Sam, so determined to save everyone he can in hopes of saving himself from his dark destiny, comes charging out of nowhere right in the nick of time to sweep Susan off her feet before the car can hit. Dean scurries after him to suggest they get inside, pronto. Well, we all knew they wouldn't actually leave, didn't we? Not with the case still unsolved.

The boys usher a traumatised Susan into the bar. "Whiskey," she gasps. Good for shock, don'tcha know. Sam goes to fix her the drink, muttering, "I know the feeling." Heh.

Susan asks what the hell happened out there. Dean asks if she wants the truth, and when she says yes he just gives it to her, straight out. "At first we thought it was some kind of hoodoo curse, but that out there, that was definitely a spirit." I love how matter-of-fact he is. Susan understandably finds this all rather hard to take in. "You're insane," she decides, tears rolling down her cheeks. Dean gives a little shrug. "It's been said," he calmly allows, before Sam hurries through the 'we don't have time to get into this' apology and rushes straight into questions about Grandma Rose's stroke. It happened about a month ago, it turns out – right before the first death.

Sam is all enthused about the picture suddenly becoming clearer: Rose was working the hoodoo after all, he realises, but not to hurt anyone – she was keeping the spirit away. Once Rose had the stroke, that protection was removed and the spirit gained the freedom of the house. Susan is all disbelief, and Dean gets impatient. "Listen, sister, that car didn't try to run you down by itself… Well, I guess, technically it did, but…if a spirit can…forget it." Heee. Sam takes over, emphasising to Susan how much danger she and her family are in, whether she believes it or not, and that she has to clear everyone out of the hotel – her employees, mother and daughters.

Bemused, Susan points out that she only has one daughter; Maggie is imaginary. The boys look thunderstruck, realising what this means.

Rose's attic. Maggie stands in front of Rose, who looks very tiny and frail in her wheelchair compared to the strong and healthy – albeit, y'know, dead – young girl before her. "She's going to stay here with me," Maggie gleefully says. "And you can't stop me. There's nothing you can do about it."

Creepy, creepy little girl. And such fabulous acting from the Grandma Rose actress, who manages to convey such immense emotion at the same time as also conveying complete stroke-induced incapacitation. Tyler appears to rebuke Maggie for bothering Grandma, and the girls wander off to play together, leaving Rose to stew in her helpless, silent fear for her daughter and granddaughter.

Susan runs upstairs, followed by the boys. They find no sign of Tyler, but Grandma Rose's old dolls are strewn around the room, many of them now smashed to bits, although this act of vandalism is never explained. Since they still don't have all the pieces of the puzzle, Sam questions Susan about Maggie, and finally draws from her the vital pieces of information that a) Tyler has been talking about her since Rose got sick, which ties in with his hoodoo theory, and b) that Rose had a sister called Margaret who drowned in the pool as a child. Bingo – the spirit is identified. But how come all that research they've been conducting didn't unearth the story of Margaret's drowning?

As the boys rush to the pool, Susan in tow, the camera focuses in on one of the dolls that remains intact – a doll with long blonde curls, just like Maggie, dressed in the same kind of plain pinafore dress both Tyler and Maggie have been wearing all episode. Is it, then, this doll – possibly made with her own hair – that Maggie's spirit is clinging to, rather than her bones, wherever they might be interred?

The pool. It is covered over with plastic sheeting, no longer in use. Tyler and Maggie perch on the railings above the water. Tyler is scared, but Maggie insists that it will all be okay, all she has to do is jump, it won't hurt and then they can be together forever. Tyler suggests that Maggie just go with them when they leave, but Maggie says no. "I can't leave here, and you can't leave me. Please. I don't want to be alone."

Just a little girl frightened of being left alone, as she has been for so many years since her death…translating into an unpredictable and violent spirit. That ties in with what the Reaper told Dean in In My Time Of Dying about how angry spirits are born.

Dean, Sam and Susan race to the poolhouse, but find it securely locked. For some reason, Dean and Sam try to break the apparently impenetrable glass, rather than just kicking the door down. The glass resists all attempts at breaking it. And then Maggie pushes Tyler into the water, where she gets tangled up in the plastic sheeting and starts to drown. Desperate efforts are made to gain access to the poolhouse. Dean and Susan rush around to the back entrance, leaving Sam to carry on hammering at that super-strong glass. Boy, I hope the glazier responsible was well paid for what was clearly a job well done.

In the pool, Tyler is drowning. Sam spots another of those ubiquitous urns nearby, divests it of the wilting plant currently dying in it, and uses it to hammer on the glass, which stubbornly resists his efforts. What he really needs is a good sharp point with something heavy behind it in a corner of the pane, rather than randomly battering the very centre of the glass.

Tyler finally frees herself of the plastic holding her under and surfaces for a gasp of air, only for Maggie to push her down and hold her head underwater. Around back, Dean finally remembers about kicking doors in rather than trying to smash them, only to find that this particular door is remarkably sturdy and resists his efforts. Damn, this poolhouse was built to withstand an invasion.

Dean kicks at the back door. Sam hammers on the glass of the front door. Tyler continues to drown. Then Maggie hears a ghostly voice calling her. "Margaret. Margaret." She vanishes, releasing her hold on Tyler. Tyler, though, has already lost consciousness and goes limp in the water. Then Sam finally busts his way into the poolhouse, and the scene totally turns into Dead In The Water Take Two as Sam leaps feet first into the water – which can't be good for the cast he is still wearing on his wrist, seven episodes later – struggles briefly with the plastic covering, and then surfaces with the apparently drowned child in his arms: same music, same slow-mo effect, same silent screaming from the distraught mother as Dean and Susan come rushing in.

Everyone looks distressed, as Tyler appears to have drowned. However, not one of them thinks to check for a pulse or attempt CPR, so it's probably just as well that the child decides to revive all on her own, waking up coughing and spluttering, to the vast relief of all concerned. Sam looks adorable, dripping wet, with his hair plastered all over his face. He anxiously quizzes Tyler about Maggie, and Tyler looks around and confirms that the spirit has gone. The brothers Winchester exchange troubled glances, wondering where exactly Maggie has gone to.

Rose's attic. Another set of siblings regard one another: the younger elderly, frail and crippled, the elder as fresh-faced as the day she met her untimely death. "You'd really do that for me?" Maggie wonders. Rose looks at her, unable to speak aloud, but clearly communicating on another level entirely. "Yes," Maggie confirms. "If you did, I'd let them go." Spirits are unpredictable and can't be reasoned with – but Rose has managed to reach this one. Maggie's desires are relatively simple, her reasoning that of a lonely child. "But I don't understand," Maggie plaintively continues. "You kept me away for so long. I thought you didn't love me any more."

Aww, bless. I like that this scene manages to make me care about these two sisters, separated by death and so very many years. It also makes me wonder just what happened all those years ago – how did Rose come to start the hoodoo rituals that kept her sister's spirit at bay all those years? Did Maggie's spirit start to haunt the family immediately after her death? Did she perhaps first manifest as an imaginary friend for her little sister? Was it the Nanny, Marie, who first saw the danger of having a ghost in the house, even the ghost of a child who had accidentally drowned, and began the hoodoo rituals, knowing no other way to keep the ghost away from the household, only later passing the secret onto young Rose? Or was it Rose, much later, who came to recognise her sister's spirit and, in fear, worked out how to use the hoodoo tricks Marie had taught her as a child to protect the family from her ghostly sister?

Rose looks frightened but resolute as she gazes into the eyes of the sister she lost so many years ago. Maggie gently strokes her face, sealing the pact they have made.

Susan holds Tyler tight as they head up to their apartment to collect Rose and leave – clearly, the hotel will be closing earlier than planned. Or maybe the end of the month has arrived already anyway. Whatever. Trailing in their wake, Dean and Sam wonder where Maggie's spirit went and why she left Tyler like that, without finishing what she'd started. They don't seem to be in any hurry to investigate on that point, but then the question is answered by a scream from upstairs. Rose is dead, slumped in her wheelchair. That was the deal she made – joining her sister in death so that Maggie would have the eternal companion she craved and no longer be alone, thus saving her daughter and granddaughter. Rose rocks, and she never said so much as one word. Dean and Sam are dismayed at there being another death after all. Can't save everyone, no matter how hard they try.

Later. Officials from the coroner's office remove Rose's body. They've had quite some custom from this hotel just lately. The paramedics said it was another stroke, Susan informs Dean and Sam, wondering if maybe Maggie had something to do with it. The boys admit that it's possible, but they can't know for sure, and show no sign of wanting to investigate further, either. Since Susan and Tyler are leaving now, they are apparently content to leave it at that. Maybe they are content to believe that with the hotel now closed there will be no further danger. But me, I'd have thought they'd want to be absolutely certain that the spirit was gone for good, not just laying low for a while, since if it is still active, it could still start attacking workmen when the house is demolished or something.

Maybe not following through on the case, no salting and burning in sight, is symptomatic of how this case was never actually about the case for either of the boys, the apparently sloppiness of their follow-through indicative of how distracting their larger personal issues really are.

Sam apologises to Susan, who insists – quite rightly – that he has nothing to be sorry for. "You've given me everything." It's again very Dead In The Water. But Sam is still on a guilt trip about not managing to save everybody. Tyler then emerges from the house, dressed in normal, modern clothes for the first time, symbolic of her freedom from Maggie's influence. Dean checks with her that Maggie isn't around, and Tyler insists that she isn't, certain that she'd see her if she was. And the boys seem quite happy to take the word of a young child as a guarantee on the subject, rather than making sure of the spirit themselves. It doesn't seem very in character for either of them – although, that said, Sam didn't bother to salt and burn the corpse he found in The Usual Suspects, either, despite having it right there in front of him and knowing that the spirit was active, if not actually killing at that stage.

Susan and Tyler head for the taxi that is taking them away to their new life, what with Susan's car being smashed up and all. Dean swings around to watch them go, looking all kinds of adorable in the process, and Sam gets a grateful farewell hug from Susan, which is cute and amuses Dean. And the brothers then head for the Impala.

Dean takes the opportunity to tease Sam a little about his hug from Susan, but Sam seems to be on something of a downer once more. "Well, you saved the mom, you saved the girl," Dean reminds him. "Not a bad day. Course, you know, I could have saved them myself, but I didn't want you to feel useless…" Sam chuckles, successfully cheered up once more, momentarily, at least. Dean's good at that, having had lots of practice.

"Feels good to get back in the saddle, doesn't it?" Dean continues, despite the fact that he who was the one who wanted to take a break from hunting in the first place, still putting on a big show of normality.

Sam agrees that it does, becoming sombre once more. "But it doesn't change what we talked about last night."

Dismayed at the revelation that Sam's memory of the previous night is intact, Dean freezes, but tries not to react, tries to deflect. Always has been the king of denial. "We talked about a lot of things last night." Sam won't let him off the hook, so Dean tries another tack, protesting, "You were wasted."

"But you weren't," Sam insists. "And you promised."

And Sam intends to hold him to that promise: that much is clear. Would Dean have agreed if he'd thought Sam would remember? It's unclear. Sam was drunk when he asked Dean to make that promise, but he's sober now, and yet still too focused on his own fear and pain to understand or maybe care that he's asking his brother to do something that would destroy him. Having this failsafe in case the worst really does happen is too important to him. In Croatoan, Sam was prepared to pull the trigger himself as long as Dean walked away first. Now, though, they both seem resigned to the fact that if one of them goes down in this mysterious apocalyptic war that's approaching, they both will. If the worst ever came to the worst and Sam did turn, there would be no walking away for Dean, there really wouldn't.

What worries me most, when I follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion, is the thought that if the worst did come to the worst, brother against brother, I think Sam would have the advantage. Because if it came down to that it would mean that Sam had turned, that he really had become evil somehow, just as the Demon seems to desire and intend. And Sam has already demonstrated on numerous occasions that he is quite capable of hurting his brother without even noticing – or even knowing full well the effect his actions and words are having but pressing ahead regardless – when he isn't evil. So…Evil Sam? Could do terrible things to Dean and not bat an eyelid. But when Dean looks at Sam all he sees is his baby brother, every time. He's protected Sam his entire life, and even if Sam turned he would still want to find a way of saving him, somehow, of bringing him back from that, before he allowed himself to consider taking him out. And that puts him at a very definite disadvantage should the worst truly come to the worst: Dean would hesitate, wondering if Sam could still be saved, but Sam wouldn't hesitate, because he'd be evil. That could make all the difference. It's worrying. Let us live in hope that it never comes to that, however vain that hope may seem.

The boys get into the car in silence. Sam is near tears once more, but resolute and determined, staring fixedly at the road ahead; Dean, glancing sideways at his brother, looks like he wants to say something, but can't get the words out, pain etched into his features. They drive away.

And that should be the end of the episode. The show always ends on the boys…but instead the camera pans back inside the hotel, and focuses in on that old photograph of the child Rose with her Nanny, Marie, before sweeping upstairs to the private family apartment, wherein children's voices can be heard. The camera moves inside…where the spirits of Maggie and Rose, a child once more, are playing happily together, reunited in death. Maggie looks truly happy for the first time in the episode. This is all she wanted: someone to play with, someone to be with her. This is the gift Rose has given her long-dead sister. It's very sweet. It's also very troubling, and exactly why the boys really should have made sure of Maggie before they left. Just because these two spirits are happy together now doesn't mean they will remain so, especially when demolition begins.

Up on the shelf, the Maggie-doll watches the girls play, together forever - at least until demolition begins.


January 2007

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